Learn English – a long, complicated word for adding many unnecessary details to make a story seem more believable

meaningsingle-word-requests

I remember the basic definition of this word, but I can't remember the word itself. To paraphrase the definition (if I remember correctly):

To include many unnecessary details with the objective of making a story or
narrative seem more convincing or believable.

The correct answer will be a long, complicated word not ever used in everyday speech. It could also be a non-verb that encompasses that basic idea.

Update

Just to provide more context. This is going to be a tough one. I've never ever heard this word used in real life. It was introduced to me when I noticed at a climbing gym; one of the routes had this word as its name. Later that night I went home and looked up the word, which revealed something similar to the above definition. Since then I have not seen the word, and since then the route has changed :/

I'm fairly accomplished at Google-fu, so I wouldn't recommend trying to answer this with a cursory scan of Google. I already spent quite a bit of time on that approach. At this point I'm really just hoping somebody on here is a professor or something with some very esoteric knowledge of obscure English words and happens to recognize it.

Update 2

A couple of people have suggested Verisimilitude. This is very close. What I'm looking for is a word which describes embellishing or embroidering a story or narrative with the end result being verisimilitude. I suspect that although difficult, verisimilitude could be achieved without the embellishment or embroidery of details, and therein lies the difference between verisimilitude and this word.

Best Answer

Verisimilitude -- this is a narrative technique of describing things in extremely accurate detail to make the fiction more believable, literally 'very similar to' real life!

Aside from being fun to say, verisimilitude (pronounced ‘VAIR-ih-sih-MILL-ih-tude’) simply means ‘the quality of resembling reality’ and a work of art, or any part of a work of art, has verisimilitude if it seems believably realistic. The word verisimilitude is derived from the Latin words verum and similis meaning “truth” and “similar.” A verisimilitudinous story has details, subjects, and characters that seem similar or true to real life.

SOURCE: https://literaryterms.net/verisimilitude/

Note: If you feel the details are unnecessary or excessive to achieve verisimilitude then you can say 'tedious verisimilitude' which is not a single-word but clearly expresses your sentiment. Example:

Mrs.P always overwhelms her readers with tedious verisimilitude. When she writes about a mining town I feel not as if I were in a mining town, but as though I were in a mining town in a Mrs.P novel -- too dreary and quite unbearable verisimilitude, more real than the real thing!

Option 2: An extremely detailed description can be called hyperdescriptive or hyper-descriptive, but this is usually intentional and the excessive detail is necessary, being intended for literary effect, as in this extract from James Joyce's Ulysses:

What did Bloom see on the range?

On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left (larger) hob a black iron kettle.

What did Bloom do at the range?

He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to let it flow.

Did it flow?

Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of 2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial plant cost of £5 per linear yard by way of the Dargle...

Source: http://www.cforster.com/2010/06/when-david-foster-wallace/

Option 3: avalanche of detail is another term often used in this context:

Roberts buried his readers under an avalanche of detail.

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